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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710523">A Conversation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate'>wafflelate</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, POV Tenzou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-29 04:26:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22710523</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsunade looks up from his chart. "ANBU Cat," she says. "Welcome back. Do you feel well enough to give a verbal report?"</p><p>That's a trick question. "Yes."</p><p>"Go ahead, then."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tsunade &amp; Yamato | Tenzou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>291</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Conversation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheliak/gifts">Sheliak</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
Tenzō has received instruction from several sources — Danzō, fellow ROOT agents, ANBU instructors — but the best and most impactful lessons have come from Kakashi. In particular, Tenzō wakes up today thinking about the time in Land of Mountains when he'd broken his ankle and fallen behind. Kakashi had turned around for him. It had wasted precious minutes in a very tight mission schedule, but Kakakshi had been unrepentant: "You go back for your teammates," he'd said, with a kind of intensity Tenzō had never seen from anyone before. "You go back and you bring them home. No one would run any missions if we all left each other behind."
</p><p>
It had been the first of many lessons about what one does with teammates, lessons Tenzō has tried to pass on to every team he's ever lead. Lessons that Tenzō almost regrets now, when he opens his eyes in ANBU Medical and the first thing he sees is Senju Tsunade.
</p><p>
Reporting to her for the first time had been hard enough — he had almost expected it to be an accusation of bloodline theft and a summary execution. But in some ways,  knowing that his team has definitely failed their first mission from the Godaime Hokage (and that they failed it out of sentimentality that <em>Tenzō taught them</em>) is so, so much worse. This failure is Tenzō's fault and no one else's.

He wonders where his team is. If he's back in Konoha they must be too, but... maybe they're in Medical as well, just in a different room. Or maybe they're due for reinstruction, and will be soon. Maybe they're not even Tenzō's team any more, and maybe Tenzō is about to learn he'll definitely never have a team again. 
</p><p>
This would be the easiest way to get rid of Tenzō. If Senju Tsunade says he died of complications, no one will argue — and certainly Tenzō was injured enough for there to be complications. At the moment he's pleasantly numb, which is an unexpected mercy, but he can approximate the damage in his head. The broken leg, the multitude of thin puncture wounds, the blunt force trauma... if two of his teammates didn't have half a medic's training each he probably wouldn't have made it back to Konoha at all.
</p><p>
Maybe it would have been better that way.
</p><p>
"Hokage-sama," Tenzō says. His mouth and throat are dry, so it kind of feels like talking through cotton.
</p><p>
Tsunade looks up from his chart. "ANBU Cat," she says. "Welcome back. Do you feel well enough to give a verbal report?"
</p><p>
That's a trick question. "Yes."
</p><p>
"Go ahead, then."
</p><p>
Tenzō doesn't waste time taking a breath, trying to brace himself. Verbal reports are given in the kneeling position. Tenzō has had his mask removed and his uniform switched out with a paper gown at some point, but this is now a debrief. No time for modesty.
</p><p>
Of course, a debrief comes with certain formalities, and that presents a problem; there's no way he'll make it all the way to his feet. 
</p><p>
He rolls out of the hospital bed, intending to land on his knees.
</p><p>
Tsunade moves faster than him, her hand reaching out and pressing him back into bed as easily as a tiger could stop a mouse. "I appreciate the gesture," she says, "but I just got done putting you back together. A verbal report from bed will be fine."
</p><p>
Tenzō stares up at her. He does not tremble; he holds perfectly still. 
</p><p>
She takes her hand off his chest.
</p><p>
"Yes, Hokage-sama," he says, letting his mouth form the words all on their own, ingrained formallaty that's able to progress full speed ahead without any real input from him. As he summarizes the mission, he wonders if he's simply not <em>allowed</em> to kneel anymore, or if Tsunade really does think Tenzō kneeling would be just <em>a gesture,</em> devoid of meaning, or if — as unlikely as it seems — Tsunade just pragmatically doesn't want her work to go to waste. 
</p><p>
Tenzō is a loyal ninja of Konoha, and he believes the Godaime will be good for the village, but not for the first time he wonders if Tsunade will be bad for him personally. 
</p><p>
When he comes to the part of the mission where he was injured, he hesitates for only a bare second and then presses onward. He admits that he took the hit for his new recruit — deliberately put the mission at risk for the sake of the least valuable member of the team — and he says he knew immediately that his team couldn't both save his life and complete the mission. 
</p><p>
"My team was acting under standing orders from myself to leave no one behind," Tenzō feels compelled to stress. "My orders to leave me behind after my injury must have been unintelligible. So they focused on first aid and exfiltration."
</p><p>
His team might have already suffered for their failure, but if not maybe he can spare them. 
</p><p>
Tsunade glances down at Tenzō's chart, sighs, and puts it down. "This village is such a damn mess." She crosses her arms over her chest, like the mess is Tenzō's fault, maybe. "I'm transferring you into the hospital in the morning."
</p><p>
Tenzō has been to the hospital before, but never as a patient. He's patrolled there, stood guard, investigated, and even visited Kakashi — but he's never received medical attention there. He can't imagine why that would change now, but it isn't as if Tsunade had asked his opinion and Tenzō knows better than to offer it unsolicited. "Yes, Tsunade-sama," he says, as if it was an order, because it basically was.
</p><p>
Maybe his chances for a successful recovery are slim and Tsunade is positioning him to be available for more testing. Tenzō has always known that was how he'd most likely serve the village if he could no longer run missions, although he'd hoped to have a decade or more of service. 
</p><p>
"What about my team?" he can't help but ask. He hopes he hasn't ruined their careers as well. He hopes they'll forgive him for passing on Kakashi's loyalty without being able to confer any of Kakashi's clout. 
</p><p>
"Lizard and Raccoon did very well, keeping you stable all the way back to Konoha." To his surprise, Tsunade actually looks...approving. "You run a good team, Cat. They'll stay in village on patrol rotations until you've recovered."
</p><p>
Lizard and Raccoon had come to him already trained in a handful of medical jutsu, but Tenzō will take the praise where he can get it. He's sure he needs every scrap of recognition he can get in the Godaime's Konoha, especially since Kakashi is extremely unlikely to intercede on his behalf the way he once did with the Sandaime.
</p><p>
At least Tsunade does seem to want him to recover, or at least wants his cooperation enough to lie about the possibility of recovery. Tenzō can't imagine he has much at all that Tsunade would want  — and isn't sure he has it in him to believe that whatever it is will be beneficial to him — but maybe it will be okay. Lizard and Raccoon will get more formalized training out of it, and if they're in the hospital anyway they might even be willing and able to visit him. Or maybe Tsunade will give him a room with a window — maybe he'll get to lay down somewhere he can see the sky, before Tsunade gets on with whatever she wants from him.
</p><p>
It could be worse, Tenzō concludes, but it might get better.
</p>
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